IBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



[FORCE COLLECTION.] | 



f UNITED STATES OE AMERICA.! 



SERMON 

PREACHED NOVEMBER 26, 1843, 

AT THE ORDINATION OF 

MR, DEXTER CLAPP, 

OYER THE UNITARIAN CHURCH AT SAVANNAH, GA. 

BY 

HENRY W. BELLOWS, 

MINISTER OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN NEW YORK : 

WITH 

THE CHARGE, 

BY 

SAMUEL GILMAN, D.D. OF CHARLESTON, S. C. 

4 ft £7 • 

lUut 1 . 



NEW YORK : 

CHARLES S. FRANCIS AND COMPANY. 
1 843. 



SERMON. 



Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, 
and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage. Gal. v. 1. 

If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye 
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. 

John viii. 32. 

I should prefer, my christian brethren, any other theme of dis- 
course to-day, than that which the circumstances of the case com- 
pel me to choose. On an occasion of so much tender interest to 
you and to him who is now to be set over you as a minister of 
Christ, we would all gladly forget that the church throughout the 
world is not sympathizing in our joy. We would fain contemplate 
the glories of that gospel, whose triumphs, by this new ministra- 
tion, we are seeking to advance ; we would freshen the face 
of those sublime and beautiful doctrines, which disciples of Jesus, 
in all ages and every where, have received and enjoyed ; we would 
contemplate the brightening prospects of Christianity, as science, 
commerce and learning prepare the way of the Lord before him. 
We would consider the exquisite adaptation of the gospel to the 
wants of individual and social man ; the institution of the sab- 
bath and the ministry ; the foolishness of preaching, by which 
the world is to be saved; the pastoral office, in which the public 
teacher and the private man are blended, and human sympathies 
and affections, accommodating themselves to the differences of hu- 
man character and condition, are mingled with divine laws and 
revealed truth, inflexible in their features and universal in their 
application. We would even more gladly consider 'the things 
which belong unto our peace,' the means of applying religious 



4 



truth more powerfully to our own consciences ; of establishing the 
kingdom of God more immoveably within us ; of uniting our- 
selves more closely with Jesus Christ our living head ; and of 
dwelling more in God, and God in us. 

But the circumstances of this occasion demand that a different 
and less inviting theme should engage our attention. Why is it 
that in a christian city like this, a minister of the everlasting gos- 
pel can find no brethren to welcome him to his office ? Why is 
it that the ends of the Union must be compassed to bring together 
those, willing to give the right hand of fellowship to him, who 
now seeks to be recognised as a messenger of Christ and a her- 
ald of salvation ? We cannot, if we would, banish the reflection 
that we are greatly isolated in this day's business ; that there is 
something which divides between us and the great body of believ- 
ers. We are not of one heart and one soul. Is it our fault, or is 
it the fault of others ? Are we schismatics and seceders, or are we 
outcasts and persecuted ? What is our offence, that consecrated 
hands refuse to lend themselves to this ordination ? 

These questions press upon us. It is our first duty to vindicate 
our position. We must explain the reasons of this isolation. We 
must demand the attention of this christian community to it. 
Unavailing as our appeal may be, it is our duty to make it. We 
cannot consent, without earnest protest, to be cut off from the fel- 
lowship of the visible church of Christ. We cannot consent to 
be denied the christian name. We will not, if any honest efforts of 
ours can prevent it, walk here among our fellow-citizens with a 
religious stigma upon us. If they can do without our fellowship, 
religious sympathy, and social confidence, we cannot do without 
theirs. If pride of opinion, sectarian feeling, or social animosity, 
sometimes prompt our unhallowed passions, to affect a total disre- 
gard to the opinions of the christian community, our meeker and 
holier affections rebuke this unchristian stoicism. By the grace 
of God, we hope indeed to be able to prefer the approbation of 
God and our own consciences to the applause of men. We can- 
not swerve a line from the truth to conciliate the world ; we can- 
not compromise our consciences or our faith ; but w r e would make 
any concessions of pride and party spirit, or humble ourselves 
ever so much, and go not only half way, but all the way, to ob- 



5 



tain the sympathy and fellowship of any body of christians, how- 
ever feeble. We would do this for our own sakes ; for we are all 
members one of another, and we cannot be happy while we are 
suspected or despised ; for the sake of others, on whom we think 
we have a precious light to bestow ; for the sake of Christ's bro- 
ken body, the visible church, from whose wounds the very life- 
blood is flowing ; for the sake of humanity, that sighs for the 
fulfilment of that heaven-descended promise, ' Peace on earth and 
good will to men.' 

We are willing then to appear here, partly as apologists for 
our opinions. Sensible enough are we how great an advantage 
he has in a contest, who is the attacking party ; and unquestion- 
ably the defensive attitude which Unitarianism has taken, from 
the beginning, has given it the appearance of weakness, and de- 
layed its visible progress. But we are willing to surrender this ad- 
vantage, and to forego rapid advancement, that we may be consis- 
tent with our own principles of christian charity and anti-sectarian- 
ism. We have been forced into a sect, not by internal attraction, 
but by outward pressure ; but we will act as little like a sect as 
human nature can. We will voluntarily give to other denomina- 
tions all the advantage to be derived from sectarian tactics, and 
continue to apologize for ourselves, although we feel strong enough, 
were we belligerent, to attack others. 

1 trust that I shall not be considered as violating the spirit of 
these remarks in speaking plainly of the doctrines held by our 
fellow-christians, from whom we dissent, and in giving our rea- 
sons for disbelieving them. It is not respectful to the great body 
of christians for a small minority to proclaim their own sentiments 
in a positive way, without reference to the opinions of the over- 
whelming majority, with whom they differ. It lies upon us to 
prove beyond dispute that we have the best reasons for differing 
from them. The presumption of the truth is in their favour. 
We are bound both to prove our own faith, and, so far as it differs 
from ours, to disprove theirs, before we are entitled to attention 
and respect. But it is not necessary to use disparaging language, 
or to indulge unchristian feeling towards our opponents. We 
may recognise them as antagonists in this great question, without 
feeling them to be enemies. The only abuse, of which u ^ can 



6 



be charged, and it is sometimes the hardest to forgive, is that of 
argument. And we pray to be protected in this discussion from 
the influence of any temper but the spirit of truth and of love. 

Nothing is gained, as it seems to me, by asserting that the dif- 
ferences between liberal and orthodox christians are small, and 
comparatively unimportant. This is true of the peculiarities 
which distinguish orthodox sects from each other, the Baptist 
from the Methodist, the Episcopalian from the Presbyterian. 
They relate to forms either of worship or government, or to 
shades of opinion. But there were not more important principles 
involved in the Reformation itself than in the Unitarian contro- 
versy. The Lutheran of the sixteenth century did not differ 
more from the Catholic, than the Unitarians of our day from the 
rest of Christendom. In asserting this, I say what our orthodox 
brethren will be glad to hear confessed, and what they continually 
assert themselves ; but what, in our love of peace, we have not 
always been willing to allow. They could afford to be separated 
from us, but we would fain have dwelt with them. But the time 
has come, when the full width of the chasm that separates us 
must be contemplated. There are certain great principles as far 
apart as the east is from the west, on which divided Christendom 
seems to have taken up its two positions, and from which the 
conflict of opinions is, for the next half century, to be waged. 

For all purposes of useful discussion, we may consider the 
christian church divided into two sects, and two only. As in the 
time of Luther, the controversy lay between Catholic and Protes- 
tant, so it continues to lie. This is the true issue. We claim to 
be the only consistent Protestants ; for, by whatever name they 
are called, we recognise, as belonging to us, all those who are 
thorough Protestants. On the other hand, we class all other sects 
together, as being in spirit anti-protestant. We do not recognise 
their lines and boundaries. They either profess, or practise with- 
out professing, the same principles. We can trace a strong family 
likeness among all creed-professing christians. The various ortho- 
dox sects (and by this term I mean all who claim this name) are 
but different shades of the same color ; and every day helps to 
blend them more closely together in this unity of their faith. 
The transition from the Catholic to the Episcopalian seemed fcr a 



7 



time to be rather abrupt, but Puseyism has shown us how di- 
rect and narrow the passage is. The Methodist Episcopal 
church unites the evangelical sects with the Catholic family, 
and the shades of difference between Methodist and Presbyte- 
rian, Baptist and Calvinistic Congregationalist, and all the oth- 
er orthodox bodies, are, from our point of view, so slight, 
that we see little to choose between them, and what we say 
of one we say of all. In this classification, we design no 
offence to any of these sects. We mean but to say, that 
our objections, as Unitarians, do not lie against their respective 
peculiarities of faith, but against that which is common to them 
all. We do not deny that their differences in other points of view 
are real and important ; but they are not important to us as Lib- 
eral Christians. We object to them in their common character of 
anti-protestants. 

The two great principles of the Protestant Reformation were, 
1st, that the Bible is the sole rule of faith and practice ; and, 2d, 
that the individual mind is the sole interpreter of the Bible. The 
right of private judgment was the radical doctrine of the Reforma- 
tion. We conceive this to be the great right, which Liberal Chris- 
tianity has in its keeping. In defence of this right, it stands up 
against the rest of Christendom. In the exercise of this right it 
has reached its own conclusions. And in the denial of it, it sees 
the great barrier to the general spread of its own views. 

One of the capital errors of the religious public is, that of con- 
founding the theological opinions of the reformers, with their 
protestant principles ; and we hear therefore a great deal said in 
praise of the doctrines of the Reformation, as if that reform had 
been a theological one. The reformers had indeed theological 
opinions on which they laid great stress, and the opinions of great 
and good men upon this subject are always valuable. But the 
reformation itself was in no sense theological. It was political 
and social. It was as little theological as the movement of the 
puritan fathers. They too had their own doctrinal ideas ; but 
their exile was in behalf of the liberty of conscience, not in be- 
half of the doctrine of faith without works, or the validity of 
anti-episcopal ordination. It is very possible that the reformers 
themselves may have attached primary importance to their the- 



8 



ology, and have been so inconsistent as to value freedom of in- 
quiry and the right of private judgment chiefly because it 
allowed them to come to their peculiar conclusions. It is cer- 
tain that they were soon false to their own great principle, and 
would gladly have exercised Catholic authority to disseminate 
Lutheran notions. But we trust we are not bound to admire the 
inconsistencies of those, whose great services to humanity we are 
prompt to honor, or to copy the errors of those, whose contributions 
to truth we gratefully adopt. As vindicators of the great right 
of private judgment, we behold the reformers, humble instru- 
ments in the hands of God. They knew not what they did. 
Had they in their blindness seen the consequences of the principle 
they asserted, they would doubtless have shrunk from it in alarm, 
as their posterity have so constantly done. We conceive the 
popular sects of Christendom to have inherited the errors and 
inconsistencies of the Reformers ; to have been enslaved, by the 
authority of their great names, into the profession of that which 
belonged to the superstition of their age and not to all time. 

As Protestants, the reformers executed the high behest of 
Heaven and divine truth. They represented the interests of hu- 
manity ; they stood on the great platform of eternal reason 
and right. They pronounced the verdict of God. But their 
private sentiments upon speculative points in theology, upon 
matters of opinion, are w T orth just what our opinions are worth, 
that is, what they can be proved to be worth by comparison 
with the standards of truth, with scripture, reason, and universal 
experience. We rejoice at our emancipation from the errors, 
which they imbibed from their age. We have no desire to iden- 
tify ourselves with them as Lutherans, or later, as Calvinists ; but 
as Protestants, as Huguenots, we claim them as our fathers ; and 
we claim to be their sole, genuine offspring. 

However inconsistently, or inconsequently, the early Protestants 
held their own cardinal principle, it will not be denied that 
their cardinal principle was the right of every man to form his 
own religious opinions from the Scriptures. And we are bound 
to try them and all their successors by this principle. We have 
no controversy with those who deny this principle, more than 
we have with those who deny the being of a God. We consider 



9 



both of these facts as self-evident, and therefore incapable of 
proof. The early Protestants did not attempt to prove their po- 
sition. The title to political, moral, and religious liberty, has 
always been found in the inalienable rights of the human soul. 
Those who could get either, have always felt their right to it ; and 
the only question in any case has been, how likely revolution and 
bloodshed were to obtain it. Life and liberty are, to human 
beings, of equal value. The right to one is the right to the 
. other ; and that, which infringes freedom, lays its hands upon life 
itself. We cannot dispute this question with the professed Catholic, 
more than we can argue for the truth of Christianity with the 
atheist. Nor is it necessary. All sects of christians, but the Roman 
catholics, assert this principle as unqualifiedly as we do, — while 
they continue to hold opinions and use practices, utterly subversive 
of, and inconsistent with it. Just as the Trinitarian asserts the 
unity of God in unqualified terms, but continues to hold doctrines 
logically and scripturally inconsistent with it. The moment he 
says he is not a believer in the divine unity, we call him a Tri- 
theist, and cease to charge him with inconsistency. He is in error, 
but consistent in it. The Catholic is in error, but not inconsist- 
ently. The creed-making Protestant is a Catholic, without the 
consistency of Catholics. 

Do I bring an unjust charge against our orthodox brethren, 
with whom creeds, professions of faith, close communion, exclu- 
siveness, form a part of their system ? However agreeable to 
the practices of the Protestant Reformers these may be, are they 
consistent with the fundamental principles of Protestantism ? 
How do, they differ in spirit from the catholic doctrine, by which 
the Church assumes the responsibility of interpreting the scrip- 
tures for its children, and compels their conformity ? What is the 
difference in principle between a withholding of the scriptures 
from private hands, and a withholding the right of coming to one's 
own conclusions in reading them ? How does political disfran- 
chisement for conscience sake, differ in principle from the rack 
and faggot of the old catholic church ? What is the assumption of 
the church of England, against which the dissenting sects of 
Great-Britain have been struggling for two centuries, but a perpet- 
2 



10 



nation of cntholic infallibility and papal oppression? How are" 
the Catholics of Ireland treated by tbe Protestants of England 
differently in principle, from the way in which the Protestants of 
England were treated by the Catholics of Mary's bloody reign? 
And in our own country, where political privileges are equally en- 
joyed, how do the denunciations and ecclesiastical exclusions, how 
do the social disabilities and stigmas with which sects visit each 
other, differ in principle from the confiscation of goods, the im- 
prisonment, or banishment, which formerly waited upon religious 
hatred and theological disputes ? And in respect of freedom of in- 
quiry and the right of private judgment, are any restrictions or 
hampers more defensible than others? What do rules of faith, 
creeds, close-communions, thirty-nine articles, Westminster con- 
fessions or presbyterian platforms, — what do they all aim at, but 
to force conclusions upon the human mind ; to impede free inqui- 
ry, by offering premiums upon certain results of investigation, 
and by threatening punishment upon certain others? It is in vain 
to say that no man is now forced to subscribe one or another 
creed, to join this or that sect ; that he is free to inquire, free to 
choose his own opinions. He is not free to inquire, if the frown 
of the public awaits his conclusions. He is not at liberty to elect 
his own denomination, if the denunciations of the sect with 
which he has been connected follow his desertion. He is forced 
to think as he is told, if his social standing and his livelihood de- 
pend, as they do in many places, upon his denominational char- 
acter. Is that a protestant community where a good man exposes 
his moral reputation, by proclaiming his Unitarianism ? Is the 
right of private judgment recognised, when the thorough and 
candid searcher of the sacred scriptures dares not to say, that his 
Bible does not teach him the supreme divinity of Jesus Christ ? 
No, no. 

Now, it is because, in principle, these opinions and practices 
still deform the bulk of the christian church, that we deny it 
the name of a Protestant church. We say, that to hang 
the chances of salvation upon speculative opinions, or to esti- 
mate the worth of character by doctrinal conclusions, is utterly 
subversive of Protestantism. We are rejoiced to see the gradual 
melioration of public sentiment upon this subject. Most happy 



11 



are we to own, that vast bodies of those connected with creed- 
founded churches are most charitable and generous in their prac- 
tical Christianity. But we can never cease to protest against 
creeds, while they continue to lay traps for the human conscience, 
to impose shackles upon human understanding, or to afford lurk- 
ing places for bigotry and theological hatred. To oppose them 
is the first distinctive principle of Liberal Christianity, as the 
emancipation of the human soul was the great object of the gos- 
pel itself ; and until thought is free, and the private conscience 
revered, and the individual man recognised as more sacred than 
churches and establishments and articles of faith, the everlasting 
gospel will not have fairly begun its glorious work of human 
redemption. 

And here it is that we catch a glimpse of a truth, lying deep- 
er than the right of private judgment, and which indeed is the 
foundation of that right, and the centre upon which turns the 
whole theological controversy of our times. The right of private 
judgment has its basis in the worth of the individual man. And 
his worth lies in his capacity of thinking and being. His ration- 
al and moral nature constitute his distinction, and to develope and 
exercise and discipline them is the business and the bliss of his 
endless existence. 

Let us dwell upon this thought, for I am sure that in its light 
the true and the false doctrines of religion appear in their real 
character, and that it furnishes a standard and test of opinions, 
more satisfactory than any other. 

That which distinguishes modern from ancient society, is the 
diffusion of knowledge, influence, and liberty, among the people, 
at large. This has not been an accidental, but a necessary re- 
sult of human progress. We may ascribe it to various secondary 
causes ; to the influence of Christianity, to the discovery of the 
art of printing, to the reformation ; but the radical reason is, the 
constitution of the human soul. There has been a regular 
growth to the idea that man as man is the true object of interest, 
and that all institutions which make him tributary to society, or 
to any of the departments of society, are essentially imperfect 
and false. We may consider all the triumphs of freedom, wheth- 
er political, social, or religious, so many consequences of the re- 



12 



sistance of the human soul, of our nature, of man, against the 
contempt, or violence of institutions which did not recognise his 
inherent right to turn them to his account, instead of being turned 
to theirs. And the whole value of all such conquests is meas- 
ured by the opportunities thus gained, for our nature to act itself 
out more freely and with no other restraints than such as God 
himself has put upon it. What is freedom, but the freedom of 
the human soul? It is not an outward thing. It is not exemp- 
tion from oppressive taxes, or imperious authority. It is the 
emancipation of thought, of conscience, which lie torpid and dead 
beneath the grasp of tyrannical institutions. We look with hor- 
ror upon the feudal system, or the social fabric of the ancient 
world, not on account of the sufferings and wrongs of the 
masses, but because man was buried under the state. It is the 
vast amount of smothered intellect, of slumbering conscience, cf 
prone affections, of prostrate humanity, in a word, that excites our 
grief and indignation. We see a great defeat of human creation 
— when the soul comes into existence and passes through it, with- 
out obtaining intellectual or moral developement ; and we call 
all political and social institutions false and inhuman, which oc- 
casion or perpetuate this tremendous evil. 

I wish to pursue this thought only so far as it throws light 
upon this single truth, that the individual man, the rational and 
moral offspring of God, is the being for whom all other things are 
made, and about whom all other things are to be arranged ; that 
no institutions are right, which do him wrong, no opinions true, 
which violate the principles of his nature, and no precepts or laws 
valuable which do not tend to advance his rational and moral 
progress. Man has no vital interest, except his salvation from 
ignorance and sin ; from intellectual and moral death. 

All political and social institutions are to be sustained or con- 
demned by their tendency to promote, or to defeat this great end, 
the emancipation of man and all men from the dominion of ig- 
norance and sin. All dogmas, like all institutions, which tend to 
enslave the mind, to substitute other aims than personal excel- 
lence, to furnish other supports than those proceeding from our 
nature itself, to remove responsibility from the individual to cor- 
porations, or in any way to enfeeble the individual man, by con- 



13 



cessions to bis weakness, are fatal to human welfare, and to be 
wholly condemned for this very reason. 

What is the grand objection, in the republican eye, to the mild 
governments of continental Europe, where, as in Tuscany and 
Prussia, and Denmark, the reigning monarchs are in truth the 
fathers of their people? what but this, that man does not ask 
kindness and generosity from his rulers, but justice ; and that he 
has no justice, while he lives chiefly to maintain the government, 
however meekly the government may carry itself ? His rights as 
a man are trampled upon ; the right to exercise a free activity, to 
put forth his powers as he will, to govern his family, to choose his 
occupation, and to rise by the means which God has given him. 
Can any condescension, or benignity of royalty, make up to a 
man for the loss of civil freedom ? — and why not ? Because his 
soul is the victim — and whether he feels it or not, and all the 
worse if he does not, he suffers a vital, a priceless wrong, in every 
obstruction to his freedom, in every restriction upon his private 
responsibleness, upon his personal activity and free growth. 

Thank God, we know nothing of this wrong by our own ex- 
perience ! But opinions and dogmas may enslave and restrict 
and hamper the human soul, as well as institutions ; and we base 
our defence of Liberal Christianity and our objections to Orthodoxy 
upon this high and broad ground. We place the popular views 
of the gospel among the oppressive and tyrannical institutions of 
the earth. They belong with the false political theories, which still 
continue to be acted out in the other nations of the earth. The 
church and the state may be well joined together, when both be- 
come engines of oppression to the human mind, and both are ready 
to consider themselves more important than the individuals that 
sustain them. 

Perhaps the radical difference between Liberal Christianity and 
Orthodox Christianity, is to be found in their several views of salva- 
tion ; and nothing better illustrates my position than this. 

The Unitarian view of salvation, is that of a redemption from 
ignorance and sin. We consider life itself the great school of the 
human soul ; and God himself, speaking through his revelations, 
first in our nature and afterwards through the prophets and his 
Son, as the great Teacher. Our Saviour's account of himself is, 



14 



that he came into the world 1 to bear testimony to the truth ' — and 
the truth it is, we read, which is 1 to make us free,' — free from the 
dominion of ignorance, the slavery of sin. Salvation then is only 
the gospel name for the true end of human existence ; the right 
developement, the proper subordination, the blissful exercise and 
enjoyment of our nature ; originally made in the divine image, 
and therefore the greatest gift God had it in his power to make to 
man. ' The kingdom of heaven is within you,' our Master has 
said ; and we believe that no one finds it, in time or eternity, any 
where else. To secure the ascendency of godlike principles, of 
heavenly affections, of divine aspirations in our souls — this is the 
endless work of life, and this is life eternal. The process and the 
result, the journey and the goal, the effort and the reward, are one 
and the same. To pursue virtue and to enjoy the pursuit ; to do 
good and to be good ; this is the christian life, and this is christian 
salvation. It is independent of time or place. All worlds are 
the home of the pure in heart, and death has no power to change 
the essential peace and blessedness of a true disciple of Jesus and 
child of God. 

If for these views we substitute an external view of salvation ; 
if we make it to consist in the blessedness, not so much wrought 
into as conferred upon the faithful soul ; if we present to hu- 
man hopes a world of unalloyed enjoyment ; a place of rest 
and rapture, prepared for struggling spirits w T ho have kept the 
faith, as a reward for their obedience, do we not at once degrade 
our conceptions ? Are we not introducing Mahometan notions 
into Christianity ? 

Do not the popular ideas of heaven (which I suppose is usually 
meant when salvation is spoken of), that is, of getting to a safe 
and happ}^ place, where the christian harness can be laid aside, 
and something like comfort be enjoyed ; do not these popular 
ideas cast a sad reproach upon the glory and sufficiency of good- 
ness ? Do they not tacitly own the virtuous or religious life to be 
a life of sacrifices and hardships, which nothing but the reward 
above could sufficiently repay ? And is human nature likely to 
pursue a selfish end in an unselfish way ? Will the disinterested 
graces of Christianity grow upon this root of expediency ? I trow 
not. If salvation is a bargain, a piece of calculation, by which 



15 



future security and happiness are purchased at the price of absti- 
nence from certain acts, performance of certain others, or by faith 
in doctrines or in persons, we may look to find the same bargain- 
ing spirit in the payment, as in the contract. And I say that this 
has been so in all ages of the church : That the rites and forms, 
the penances and humiliations of the Catholic Church are only a 
more conspicuous expression of the almost universal desire and 
expectation of obtaining salvation in some other way, than by 
purity and scrupulousness of character. Is it not clear that any 
view of salvation, which places the seat of it outside the human 
soul itself, diminishes the worth of that soul ; removes the weight 
of personal responsibility from it, and is unfavorable to that in- 
ward life and energy of the individual man, which we have seen 
to be the great central doctrine of human progress ? 

Again. Compare, in respect to their favorableness to human 
progress and individual growth, the Unitarian and the Orthodox 
views of human nature. We believe that God made man upright, 
but that he has sought out many inventions. We believe that 
man is a mixed being, possessed of that which unites him with God, 
in reason and in conscience ; possessed also of that which connects 
him with the present state. He is of the heaven, heavenly ; of 
the earth, earthly. His animal passions tend to extravagance ; 
his appetites and desires require the strong hand of reason to re- 
strain, and the sacred voice of duty to warn. But there is nothing 
in man which may not, by his faithfulness, under that blessing 
which is never denied, be made conducive to his present and his 
eternal welfare. Human nature therefore is just what a being, 
possessed of that free will which alone makes him capable of vir- 
tue and immortality, must have ; and therefore, just as it is, with 
all its weaknesses and exposures about it, it is the great and perfect 
gift of God — for which eternity will not afford too ample a lime for 
our gratitude. We start then upon our career with God's full 
blessing with us. He throws us, for our own sakes, upon our- 
selves. On ourselves depends the result of our great enterprise. 
It is for us freely to choose whom we will serve — the God who 
made, or the devil that tempts us — the God in us, or the powers 
of darkness. O, we know full well, in our inmost souls, that at 
our own door lie the sins we commit with and against this nature ! 



16 



And what is there that encourages us so much as the thought 
that there is nothing between us and a return to our duty, but 
a voluntary weakness ? and what gives such sharpness to the 
tooth of remorse, as the feeling that we have brought our sorrow 
on our own heads by our own folly ? 

And now with what an opiate to the conscience, with what a 
premium upon complacency, does an erring theology here step in 
to take the blame off the individual soul and lay it upon our fed- 
eral head, upon our corrupt nature and the Author of that nature. 
Depraved as our nature is asserted to be, will it not all the more # • 
take advantage of this doctrine, to lull its own upbraidings. If 
our nature is wholly corrupt, would not God in mercy have con- 
cealed it, that the deceitfulness of the human heart might not be 
tempted to use the doctrine to its double damnation? Constituted 
as man is (corrupt or incorrupt the fact is not changed) he can- 
not feel remorse for any guilt which he has not perpetrated. He 
may with agonies desire to escape a doom, which for no fault of 
his own, he is taught hangs over him ; but he cannot feel the 
justice of the Being who threatens it ; nor can he escape the con- 
fusion which such a theory introduces into all his conceptions of 
right and wrong. Does not the popular view of human nature, 
the origin of sin, and our total or natural corruption, vitiate the 
common conscience ? Does it not create that very disgust of re- 
ligion which it is called to account for, and create the rebellion 
against God which it quotes as an argument for its truth ? Does 
it not, with all its consequences, of election, irresistible grace, 
and the final loss of all unregenerate souls, whose name is legion, 
— does it not raise every natural, generous, and chivalrous emotion 
of the common soul in us, in sturdy opposition to its assertions, 
and thus mislead men into the dreadful and wretched mistake, 
that they and their Maker are on different sides ? And what' is 
the final influence of this doctrine upon the character ? Does it 
tend to create, even in those who overcome their disgust for it, a 
free, independent, filial, and cheeruil love for God and duty — a 
mutual respect and confidence among men ? or does it fill the 
world with jealousy and distrust ; with sanctified extravagance 
and spiritual pride, on the one hand, and abandoned and reckless 
folly and self-contempt, on the other ; or, with what is as bad as 



17 



either, stupid indifference and melancholy despair ? Such I be- 
lieve to be the tendency of the popular doctrine of natural deprav- 
ity. It creates the sin it supposes ; as we often create in others 
the jealousy, suspicion, or meanness, with which we charge them 
as yet innocent. I say nothing of the character in which the Al- 
mighty Father appears in the light of this doctrine ; but ask how 
such a theory favors our hope of human emancipation from ig- 
norance, sin and sloth ? 

Again ; compare the Unitarian and the Orthodox views of re- 
demption, of the means of salvation. We say that repentance 
toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, are the gos- 
pel terms of salvation. That sin is the only thing standing be- 
tween man and the forgiveness and acceptance of God ; that sa- 
ving faith, is that belief in our Savior, as a messenger from God, 
which leads the individual soul to confide in his declarations, ac- 
cept and apply his precepts, to see his character in the light of his 
holy gospel, and lament and forsake the sins, which it brings to 
view in the soul, while it emulates the graces and cherishes the 
affections and principles which Christ has illustrated in his own 
person. Personal reformation, not merely of manners and habits, 
but of principles and affections ; a change not in appearance, but 
in deed and in truth ; in the heart, at the centre, and not on the 
surface or at the extremities ; this is the regeneration of the gospel, 
the new birth which is followed by divine forgiveness for past er- 
rors and sins, and by present and future acceptance. In this 
greatest of all works, after creation itself, how glorious and sub- 
lime is the office of Jesus Christ ! who comes to sinful men with 
a message of love from an unknown Father ; who re-awakens 
faith in the abandoned and desperate, by the inviting and en- 
couraging tones of his sympathizing voice ; who comes not to con- 
demn the world but to save it, by speaking as never man spake 
of an immortal world, of a holy and yet all loving Father, of the 
majesty of conscience, the glory of virtue, the degradation of sin, 
the beauty of holiness. Ah ! is he not indeed the Savior of the 
world, who calls a world of souls, dead in trespasses and sin, into 
newness of life ! What was the resurrection of Lazarus itself, 
(except as an attestation of the superhuman commission of Je- 
3 



18 



sus), compared with the conversion of the woman that sat and 
bathed our Savior's feet with her tears ? Sin is a more fatal 
power than death, and a regeneration of character a diviner event 
than a resuscitation of the body. What then can be so precious 
in the sight of God as the revival of moral and spiritual life in 
his offspring ! What mission could the Almighty send his best- 
beloved son upon, so important and so glorious as this ? And 
what office can Jesus himself regard with so much satisfaction, 
as that which he still fills, while his truth and his character are 
continuing to operate upon the latest posterity of those among 
whom he walked on earth. 

What character is so honorable to God, as that in which he 
appears with no other disposition than that of promoting the 
triumph of his own moral attributes in the hearts of his rational 
children ? and what so inspiring to man, so favorable to indi- 
vidual responsibility, so persuasive to the affections and moving 
to the conscience, so entirely in accordance with our main po- 
sition and central fact, as the doctrine that repentance and refor- 
mation, to forsake evil and learn to do well, are the sole conditions 
of christian salvation 1 

And now, am I compelled to contrast with this view the pre- 
vailing opinion of the christian church ? 

We are first referred back to a poetical or symbolical account in 
the antideluvian world, of the fall of our whole race, in the person 
of Adam, — a being created in perfect holiness, who succeeded in 
involving his whole posterity in ruin, by yielding, in his upright 
state, to a temptation which one of his fallen descendants might 
count it no great proof of virtue to withstand. In some way, for 
fear of misstating I will not attempt to say how, this lapse of our 
frail ancestor made it impossible for any of his descendants to 
please God. Their nature became depraved ; their best acts cor- 
rupt at the source ; and the divine wrath was kindled against 
man, even to dooming him, as a race, to the unquenchable fires of 
hell. God's justice cried out for vengeance ; and humanity, with 
all its unborn millions, was not too great a hecatomb. But God 
was moved with compassion, and sent his innocent Son, to suffer 
in his own person the consequences of divine wrath. He was 



19 



made a curse for us, and the doom of perdition thus averted 
from such as accept him as their atonement. 

I draw this picture in as favorable colors as I can. I do not 
use the horrible language, in which it is written down in confes- 
sions and catechisms, nor in which it is retailed in pulpits, in 
our own day. I do not speak of the contrast drawn between a 
compassionate Savior, and an angry God ; or of the love^ which is 
thus alienated from the Supreme Being, to his creature ; nor will 
I dwell upon the logical and scriptural inconsistencies involved in 
this doctrine, which is based upon the truth of the trinity, — '■ a 
dogma, that cannot be stated in scripture language, that borrows 
every one of its favorite terms from human invention, and which 
originated, according to the unerring testimony of ecclesiastical 
history, in the third or fourth century, among platonising fathers. 

I will not speak of the folly of calling the work of finite beings 
infinite, as theologians do when they style human sin infinite, be- 
cause committed against an infinite Being ; nor of the insincerity 
with which our Savior's character is charged by the theory of the 
double nature, according to which he declares himself not to know 
at all, what he must know in one of his characters, if he be the 
Supreme God. But I ask you to consider how this doctrine fa- 
vors the emancipation of the human understanding, the sense of 
personal responsibility, the deep conviction of individual un wor- 
thiness? how does it support the great and glorious idea of 
our time, of personal, strictly individual independency? How 
is the private man like to feel his isolation in his account- 
ableness under the influence of this federal-headship of Adam, 
or this systematic atonement of Jesus ? What is the effect upon 
the clearness of human conceptions as to right and wrong, vice 
and virtue ? Above all, what relation does it establish between 
the human soul and God its great original ? Can any thing be 
so important as just, affecting, elevated ideas of God? Does not 
man necessarily conceive of God, by his image in his own soul, 
and does not his conception of God, form his ideal of character ? 
If then you debase human nature, you debase human ideas of 
God ; and if you give cruel, or coarse, or repulsive conceptions of 
God, you introduce a degrading standard of character among 
men. Nations have always conceived of their gods through their 



20 



own passions, and justified their passions by the authority of the 
gods they have conceived. And so in all ages of the christian 
church, the conceptions of God have been the standard of its 
progress. The cruelties and outrages of the church have always 
quoted the authority and copied the conduct ascribed to the Su- 
preme Being. The slaughter of the Canaanites has been the 
death-warrant of millions. The anger and wrath of God, so 
called in the figurative or sensual language of oriental Hebrew 
poetry, has inflamed the worst passions of men calling themselves 
Christians. The vindictive justice of God, manifested as it is sup- 
posed in the sacrifice of Christ, has nerved the arm of a persecu- 
ting hierarchy in its murders of men, too pure to submit to its 
authority. 

The application of different standards of rectitude to God and 
man, by which that has been justified in the divine, which would 
be abhorred in human conduct, has introduced the most fatal con- 
fusion into the common conscience. What but this supported the 
pious frauds of the Catholic Church, and what but this sustains 
many of the popular doctrines of Christianity, which raise the cry 
of mystery, when the human conscience condemns them and 
takes shelter under a standard of rectitude too high for man to 
understand. I see nothing but danger, nothing but oppression, in 
the popular doctrine of the atonement. It confuses men's ideas of 
justice ; it lowers their reverence of God as a holy Being ; it sub- 
stitutes fear of punishment, for love of goodness ; it holds out 
false hopes to men, in the merits of Christ. If sin is imputed, holi- 
ness may be imputed, and if man can borrow or beg, he will not 
work righteousness. It introduces complexity into a perfectly plain 
matter. It appeals to the passions and not to the conscience. It 
demands a surrender of common sense, and an artificial sense of 
sinfulness before it can be adopted, and supplies a hope based upon 
technicalities, upon an ingenious scheme of theology, nowhere ex- 
pressly taught in the Bible, for the inward confidence of pardon 
and acceptance with God, which a true self-respect ought to give 
every moral being. In its tendencies (I know how greatly they 
are modified and withstood) but in its native tendencies, it is hos- 
tile in an eminent degree, to the emancipation of the human in- 
tellect from the bondage of ignorance, of the human conscience 



21 



from the torpor of sin, and the human affections from low and 
unworthy objects. Viewed from the centre, the freedom and el- 
evation of the individual man, it appears alike erroneous and 
baneful. 

I might apply this same rule to an endless number of parallels, 
between Liberal and Orthodox Christianity. But I must draw these 
protracted observations to a close. 

But I beg none to suppose that the view I have now presented, 
is that in which Liberal Christianity appeals most forcibly to our 
confidence. I have only incidentally referred to the Scriptural 
test of truth ; nor have I time to say any thing more than this — - 
that however earnestly we may labor to adjust our views to reason; 
it is only after we have first found them in the Bible. The New 
Testament, and especially the words of Jesus himself, is the ar- 
mory of liberal Christianity. To the law and to the testimony is 
our cry. We conceive that the strength of our position is in its 
scripturality ; that the undivided unity of God — the derived and 
dependent character of the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord — 
the sufficiency of repentance to salvation — are laid down as the 
great doctrines of the Bible, in texts so plain and numerous, that 
a Unitarian could not invent better ones for his purpose ; — that the 
opposite dogmas are inferences from obscure and disputed passages, 
considered out of their connexion, and brought together from the 
opposite ends of the scriptures, in a manner which, if it be allowed, 
any thing can be proved from the Bible. We see therefore a 
new attack upon the freedom of man, in the popular use of the 
scripture — that servility to a part of the letter, and disrespect to 
other parts, casts contempt upon the free and rational action of 
human inquiry, and baffles all unsophisticated minds. We see in 
this a perpetuation of the catholic pretension to the exclusive right 
of the church to interpret the word of God — for the received rules 
of interpreting the scriptures are such as none but theologians can 
apply, and the common people are thus dispossessed of the right to 
read and interpret their Bibles for themselves. The effect is to 
shackle all independent thinking upon religious matters ; and 
this is but one way of enslaving the human intellect, under 
the plea of honoring the word of God, while the human soul, to 
which that word came, is trampled under the foot of its human 



22 



administrators. And this is the position from which liberal chris- 
tians are charged with setting up reason against scripture, because 
they defend the protestant doctrine, that the private man is its sole 
interpreter ! 

As the sabbath was made for man, so the Bible was given to 
man. In seeking to interpret it by the full light which God has 
given him, the only wrong he does is to the arrogance of those 
who would substitute their reason for his ; for, in the name of 
common sense, how does, or can, any one read and understand 
the scriptures except by his rational nature ? Alas, the cry against 
reason is the deadliest form of attack upon human freedom, upon 
christian progress ! Men know not what they do, when they raise 
it. It was this insane cry that so long defended the divine right of 
kings to oppress their people ; that established and sustained the 
catholic mass and the inquisition ; and has made the progress 
of the church every where so much a work of blood and sin. Un- 
til reason, the divine spark within us, is fully vindicated, man has 
no recognised worth as an individual. Masses, brute force, au- 
thority of numbers, rule. Science is at war with religion ; com- 
mon sense in league with infidelity ; and the great central point, 
where all truth meets, is as yet undiscovered, or pronounced pro- 
fane ! 



My christian brethren of this church, to you is committed, in 
this region remote from the strongholds of our faith, the guardian- 
ship of the principles I have thus feebly set forth. You are this 
day calling to your aid in this great work, a consecrated minister 
of the everlasting gospel. You have called him away from the 
scenes of his youth and the society of his natural friends ; from 
the countenance and direct sympathy of his clerical brethren ; and 
he has left all to come over and help you. Give him then the 
hearty and affectionate support he has a right to demand from 
you. Give to his public ministry your habitual and regular at- 
tendance ; to his pastoral walk a Way to your homes, and through 
your hearts. Let him feel that you appreciate the sacrifices he 
makes in filling this lone post upon the outskirts of Zion. 



23 



But this society needs to give no new pledges of fidelity and 
affection. The spirit of him who sustained for a brief season, 
alas ! the pastoral relation to you, my beloved class-mate and 
friend, Thacher speaks from its place in heaven, and says to him 
on whom his mantle now falls, £ Trust this flock. They know 
the voice of a faithful shepherd, and will come at his call. Their 
love to me is the pledge of their devotion to you.' I have no charge 
to give you, but that you shall repeat for your new pastor, the 
conduct you showed your old one ; and I can wish no more from 
this new connexion, than that it may be as productive of good, 
and of happiness, as the last. 

And now, my christian brother, as the representative of our 
churches, I welcome you to the duties and the privileges of the 
Christian Ministry. I speak from the depths of a grateful experi- 
ence, when I say that God looks down upon no more blessed office. 
Of all professions it is the one in which private culture runs most 
parallel with public duty and usefulness. And, if to grow in 
grace, and in the knowledge of God our Saviour and our Lord 
Jesus Christ, be the highest aim of life, who so privileged as he 
whose business it is to live in daily communion with the Master 
and Redeemer of the world ! 1 welcome you to the responsibilities 
of the ministry, which ought not to overwhelm, but to steady your 
walk. I welcome you to its studies, the highest and most delight- 
ful that can exercise the mind. I welcome you to the pulpit, the 
joy and throne of the man of God ; the most central and com- 
manding position, from which truth, eloquence, and love, can 
speak to the human soul. 1 welcome you to the pastoral relation, 
the tenderest nurse of friendship, in which the charm of domestic 
relations is extended through the wide circle of acquaintance. 

I welcome you to the trials and supports, the joys and sorrows, 
the hopes and fears, the duties and pleasures of this instructive, 
varied, and richly freighted office. 

Accept then this right hand of fellowship, the pledge of that 
sympathy and cooperation, which the churches of Jesus Christ 
now promise to have with you. I give it in behalf of the liberal 
churches of New England, of your sister churches at the South, 
of my own church in New York. I give it as a minister of Christ, 
as a unitarian pastor, as a personal friend ; and in this embrace 



24 



may we be cementing the hearts of Northern and Southern 
churches of our faith in an indissoluble union. God grant you a 
useful ministry, a united and faithful flock, a long and happy life, 
and an incorruptible crown in the world, whither we are all jour- 
neying. Amen. 



THE CHARGE. 



BY SAMUEL GILMANj D, D. 

IT is one of the time-honored and significant usages of the 
Congregational or Independent Church, that at the ordination of 
a Candidate for the Ministry, one of his older and more experi- 
enced brethren should deliver him The Charge ; embodying 
views of the principal functions of the office he is about to as- 
sume, and presenting such topics of advice or encouragement as 
may be appropriate to the occasion. 

Appointed, my young friend, this day, to the performance of 
this interesting exercise, I would first assure you, that I claim no 
authority over you, save the authority of affection, sympathy, and 
experience. Even if you were to receive me as the adequate 
representative of that whole branch of the Christian Church to 
which you belong, T could not presume to invest you with any 
special power, or impart to you any mystic, extraneous qualifica- 
tion. You have been educated, through a full course, at an es- 
tablished Theological Seminary ; — you have been regularly licensed 
as a Preacher of the Gospel by an Association of Christian minis- 
ters ; — you have been unanimously elected by this religious society 
as their pastor ; — you hold in your hand, and you press to your 
heart, the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; 
— you earnestly desire to proclaim to your fellow-men the truths, 
doctrines, commands, promises, warnings, and whole interior vital 
spirit of that sacred volume ; — you have just now received ordi- 
nation at the hands of an ecclesiastical council regularly conven- 
ed and regularly organized ; — and you commence your pastoral 
course with the prayers, good wishes, and fervent benedictions of 
4 



26 



ministering brethren, sister-churches, and many a christian, sym- 
pathising soul, both far and near. Faulter not, then, my brother, 
in the apprehension that you are undertaking to break the bread 
of life with incomplete authority, or that you are rashly or precip- 
itately laying hold on the ark of God. In vain will you look to 
any other quarter for credentials more distinct, palpable, or indis- 
putable. Go forth, then, in the power, and majesty, and love- 
liness of the gospel. Discharge the functions, and exercise the 
prerogatives of an ambassador of Christ. Offer up the devotions 
of the altar. Administer the Christian ordinances. Divide and 
distribute the word of life. Lead forward, and feed, every day, 
your flock, like a shepherd. 

Having thus, in a manner, delivered your general commis- 
sion, it may be expected that I should descend into some few 
details, as to the right method of its execution. The three 
epistles of the Apostle Paul to Timothy and Titus have long and 
justly been considered as an excellent and inspired compend of 
the specific duties of the Christian ministry — the office of a 
Bishop, or overseer, in the earliest ages of our religion, being un- 
derstood to coincide with that of the pastor of a single church in 
modern times. It is indeed astonishing to observe how much in 
those epistles articulately applies to the office of the ministry at 
the present day. It would seem as if the Apostle were intimately 
acquainted with the moral and spiritual exigencies of every con- 
gregation in our own time, and had vividly entered into the 
feelings of every youthful candidate for the ministry, however 
enlightened by the vast information, and agitated by the keen 
and novel responsibilities of the nineteenth century. Without 
pausing to dwell on this striking proof, among innumerable 
similar, of the divinity and universality of our religion, I cannot 
give you better advice, than that you should study, and literally 
treasure in your memory, the three epistles in question. Make 
them emphatically " The Charge." Let them be more than 
your manual. Let them constitute the choicest furniture of 
your mind. Nor can you more appropriately celebrate every 
future anniversary of this day, of which we wish you many 
happy onesj than by reviving and confirming your intimate 
familiarity with that best of Preachers' Guides. 



27 



Possibly you may have already anticipated and rendered 
superfluous my next advice, while I proceed to recommend 
that you should early form some fixed and comprehensive plan, 
extending through many years, perhaps through your whole 
life, and embracing in one harmonious whole the most impor- 
tant duties, as well as the minutest details of the pastoral care. 
Let your preaching be conducted according to the frame-work 
of some system ; it is comparatively of little consequence what 
the system is, — whether, for instance, a progression of promi- 
nent texts throughout the Bible — or a course of expository teach- 
ing — or a connected body of divinity and morals — or any other 
organized scheme that your studies and reflections may alight 
upon. You will find that the minds of this people will fall, 
with wonderful facility, into such a systematic course. They 
will readily yield themselves to your spiritual training and edu- 
cation. See there the elevated delight, the vast, yet delicate 
and dread responsibility of the conscientious Christian teacher ! 

When your system is thus marked out and commenced, put 
your whole soul into its prosecution. Let your premeditating 
studies be never unattended by prayer. Let the great field of 
your labor be here. Let all your mental cultivation be poured 
into this channel. Let your pulpit, under existing circumstances, 
be rarely left vacant a single Sabbath, even for the most promi- 
nent missionary excursions ; otherwise, you may find that you 
are nursing two or more precarious, sickly, decaying plants, 
instead of one that is vigorous and flourishing. We have or- 
dained you over this feeble, infant, growing flock, and not as 
a missionary or minister at large. Yet do not be over-anxious 
about immediate or apparent results. They may or they may not 
arrive. It is indeed a possible thing that this house, in a single 
year, may be filled with habitual worshippers, and it is an equally 
possible thing that, with exertions just as faithful and capable, 
it may dwindle away to an empty and echoing tomb. I shall 
neither be so romantic as sanguinely and smoothly to prophesy the 
one, nor so gloomy and despondent as to forebode the other. Paul 
and Apollos may plant and water, but God alone, in his own due 
time and way, can give the increase. But one prediction I con- 
fidently venture to make, grounded as it is on no limited range 



28 



of experience and observation. Should your life, and health, and 
present opportunities be spared, the diligent administration of that 
form of Christianity which you have adopted as the truth, will, 
under ordinary circumstances, as certainly acquire a gradually 
growing prosperity and ultimate success, as the revolution of the 
earth on its axis will usher on the ascending march of the morn- 
ing hours to the noon of perfect day. The fact is, there is in 
every religious and civilized, or, more properly speaking, in every 
christanized community, what maybe called the Unitarian element. 
There is, even in this age of reviving formality and religious anti- 
quarianism, a yearning in many quarters after simplicity and 
intelligibleness of doctrine, coupled, of course I mean, with purity 
of life and earnestness of aim. It will sooner or later be gratified. 
It will work its way through mountains of difficulty. It built 
these walls under greater discouragements than I now dare to 
revive the thought of ; it has persevered through them all, until it 
has at last arrived at this auspicious day. 

The inculcation of Unitarian Christianity however is far from 
implying an unvaried strain of controversial and critical preaching. 
There must be occasions indeed when such preaching will be 
imperiously demanded. You are embosomed in a community, the 
vast majority of whom, as already remarked by our brother, regard 
as error what you believe to be the pure and unadulterated truth 
of God. Respect even for your neighbors and opponents, requires 
that you should state the grounds and reasons of your differing 
from them, and embracing those simplified views of scripture and 
of Christianity, which you humbly but undoubtingly deem to be 
in advance of the rest of Christendom. Often the serious inquirer 
will find his way to your teachings, and will wish to learn the al- 
phabet of what to you may intuitively seem the clear and establish- 
ed record of eternal verity. Misrepresentations of every kind, and 
out of every sort of motive, — conscientious, wanton, or malign, 
— may possibly blow, like the currents of the air, from all quarters 
of the compass. The odium and the doom of the Reformer are 
upon you. Even the mildest will scarcely forgive you, for daring 
to imply that their cherished beliefs may be mistakes. I am 
aware that, in time, you can mainly live these things down — but, 
in far briefer time, and with more comfort and satisfaction to 



29 



yourself and your friends, you can do much to preach them down. 
Be bold, firm, gentle, explicit, charitable. Let even the charge of 
being no christian, which is sometimes urged by ultra-controversi- 
alists, drive you to the faithful self-interrogation, whether you are 
indeed so good a christian as you ought to be. Expect some- 
times, and excuse bitter speeches and bitter treatment, remember- 
ing that that same quality of bitterness is often as wholesome a 
tonic for the soul as for the body. State frequently and precisely 
what are your distinctive views. You know they are consistent 
with a fair and enlightened interpretation of scripture, or rather 
with scripture everywhere interpreted by itself. You know that 
they are the essential, vertebral articles in every Christian creed* 
You know that they possess, in themselves alone, a mighty power 
to elevate, and sanctify, and save the soul. Let others know it 
of them too. Preach them positively, and preach them negatively. 
Show what they are, and show what they are not. Preach them 
impliedly and relatively, directly and indirectly. Allow no inju- 
rious misconstruction or misstatement of them to remain unan- 
swered. And thus, be assured, you will not impede, but rather 
facilitate those loftier and more general representations and appli- 
cations of Christianity — those fervent appeals to the conscience — 
and those close pressings-home of duty, which no doubt are more 
congenial to your inclinations, inasmuch as the tilling and reaping 
of a fair, luxuriant, fertile field is a more agreeable occupation than 
the clearing and the fencing. 

The Youth of your flock will of course engage your par- 
amount interest and attention. Watch over your Sabbath School, 
as the shepherd looks after his folded lambs. Take some per- 
sonal share yourself in the conduct of that institution, even though 
it be as a Teacher under the Superintendent, or as a constant 
visiter and inspector. Be able to call every child by its name. 
For He, your great Teacher and Exemplar, not only brought 
life and immortality to light, but was also the loving compan- 
ion of the wondering infant. By thus centering and reconciling 
within himself such remote and extreme contrasts, — by thus 
sounding every depth in human nature, he vindicated the di- 
vinity of his mission, and exhibited, with living, moulding 
power, a certain profound and beautiful completeness of charac- 



30 

ter — a certain fulness of the Godhead — before which the light 
and efficacy of philosophy, history, and mere earthly morality, 
turn dim. 

Be a good visiter among your people. Every door in their 
community will gladly open and welcome you in as a friend. 
Another instance of the peculiar and thrilling responsibility of 
the Christian ministry ! What an affecting, what a pregnant 
prerogative is this ! How much of the well or ill being of society 
may yet depend upon it ! How you must wish that you were as 
one of Abraham's angels on every threshold that you pass ! You 
are to be the link between the rich and the poor. Visit them 
alike. Court not the one through obsequiousness, nor the other 
for popularity. A daily visit somewhere, paid in regular routine, 
in addition to your special and occasional calls of formality or 
friendship, can be accomplished, with the greatest ease, — will 
never interfere with your most absorbing course of studies, — and 
will probably redound to the entire satisfaction of all parties, ban- 
ishing complaints on the one hand, and a delinquent, procrastina- 
ting, ill-at-ease conscience and habit on the other. One personal 
experience permit me here to communicate. In a ministry of 
nearly a quarter century duration, I have almost invariably found, 
that whenever I had felt doubtful, anxious, timid, delaying, or awk- 
ward, about the propriety of paying a pastoral visit, or introducing 
religious conversation, or proposing prayer to the sick or the 
mourner, — the visit, the conversation, the prayer, would happily 
prove acceptable, and thus rebuke my unworthy shyness. Go 
trustingly then on your daily mission among the thinking minds 
and teachable hearts that are waiting to receive you. There is a 
quiet, noiseless kind of proselytism, which does not indeed com- 
pass sea and land, but which meekly walks from house to house, 
and which will fill your communion-table, and knit your congre- 
gation together, with a success which periodical or irregular ex- 
citements rarely know. 

Take courage now, my friend and brother. I know and feel 
all — how shall I describe it? — all the superincumbent weight and 
anxieties of your position. Our destinies are similar. But I 
allow that, in every point of view, the pressure upon your sensi- 
bilities must be considerably greater than it was, four-and-twenty 



31 



years ago, upon mine. Still, amidst the depressing considerations 
which sometimes induce you to exclaim with the Apostle, Who 
is sufficient for these things ? — there certainly are others which bid 
you to be of good cheer. Providence has given you to a kind and 
generous people, and well do you know their spirit ! Your very 
distance from the neighborhoods where our peculiar faith prevails 
is not without its compensating palliations. You are indeed de- 
prived of the benefit and pleasure of frequent ministerial ex- 
changes — but you are thereby thrown upon your own regular, 
independent, unfettered resources. You can seldom be annoyed 
by the complaints, which sometimes perplex our northern brethren, 
that they exchange too much, or exchange too little, or exchange 
with the wrong parties, or fill their pulpits with every indifferent 
preacher who is passing by. When you ascend your desk, you 
ascend it in presence of a people who have made you their delib- 
erate choice. Your lot too is cast in a fair, enlightened, and 
flourishing city, where, even beyond the enclosure of your own 
religious denomination, you will meet with circles of liberal and 
sympathising minds. And who knows but even here, as respects 
your religious position, there may exist for you, ere long, a happier 
attitude of things, towards which approximations are fast tending 
in some regions, and of which a consummation has arrived in 
others ? Let it not be your fault, my friend, if Unitarian Christ- 
ianity fails here to be acknowledged one of the legitimate branches 
of the common parent-stock — placed a little higher up perhaps in 
the cooler air of reason, but on that very account waving with a 
freer grace, catching at least some rays of light and warmth from 
the same beaming sun above, deriving its sap and nutriture 
directly from the same sacred root below, and bearing its fair 
proportion of sound and enduring fruit. But whatever may hap- 
pen as to such a merely local and personal result, you have higher 
responsiblities and sanctions to look to, and to bear upon your soul, 
on this, to you, momentous day. Justly may you imagine the 
pure and sainted spirits of all past, present, and future generations 
— together with the higher unbodied intelligences of heaven, who, 
we know, take an interest in the spiritual concerns of men — with 
Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant, our crucified, ascended, 
and glorified Redeemer — and God, the Father and Judge of all, as 



32 



leaning down out of the near precincts of the invisible world, and 
addressing to you the blended command and promise, Be thou 
faithful unto death, and when the chief Shepherd shall appear, 
thou shalt receive a crown of glory, that fadeth not away. 



I 



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